Cutthroats of the Coast

Chapter 23 - Salé

Despair filled me as Mohammed and his fellows bound our hands at the small-holding. Even as they whipped us into line, joining a similar group of poor fellows who were held by the rest of Mohammed’s party, I did not really think fortune could have dealt me a more disabling blow.

Seven days of hard driving did not disabuse me of that notion. The streaks of open cuts and welts that criss-crossed our sunburned backs were a mere irritation to me but a burning torture for Jack, Nathaniel and Ramsbottom. The one agony that ate at me on that harrowing march was my sobriety. If I could have quenched my thirst in rum then all would have been well. I have suffered worse drunk but I have rarely had to remember that suffering.

I am not sure that there wasn't a curse from the classical lexicon that I did not heap upon Maria's head because of that. It amused me to pry these from my memory to relieve some of the pain in my guts. Sweet coffee or a wholesome draught of ale would have relieved me of these gripes – I have had experience of them before – but all that was available was the gritty, noisome water that was doled out to the column at every stop.

I finally settled on a curse that I hoped the blood on my back would sanctify. As I trudged along in the dust raised by thirty pairs of bare feet, blistered and bleeding, I repeated it over and over again like a litany uttered in church.

“To Jupiter, Best and Greatest, I curse Maria Da Silva and her life and mind and memory, her liver and lungs mixed up together, and her words, thoughts and memory; thus may she be unable to speak of what things are concealed, nor be able to remember all that has come before. May a pox take her and rot her from within and without, so that her intestines pour from her in a stream of dissolution, and that her skin falls from her in strips. May she be ever shunned by those who look upon her and may her ears be filled with the cries of those terrified by the wages of her sin!”

The most satisfying thing about it was that I could substitute Maria's name for that of Solomon Jones, Butcher the bosun, Mandrake, Governor Cholmeley, Mohammed, Moulay Ismail, my creditors in Oxford or my father. My recitations diverted me from the drudgery of that wearying journey as we toiled away across that hard, open countryside, watching it change in character from sylvan to shrivelled.

Mohammed was not a cruel overseer by choice, only by necessity. He drove his column of prisoners on like lambs to the slaughterman. The penalty for tardiness, or disappointing the Sultan was not to be considered. Moulay Ismail was only early in his career but he was already establishing the reputation for blood-curdling cruelty that he had twenty years later. It was not uncommon for servants of the Sultan to suffer summary execution on the slightest whim. The Sultan had requested experienced sailors for his ships and Mohammed was eager to fulfil his task simply on the grounds of self preservation. Being torn apart by horses was not something he wished to risk.

He obviously felt that this work was beneath him but his unquestioning loyalty meant that we would feel his ire should we delay the satisfaction of the Sultan's orders. We were whipped and we were beaten but we were a particularly dilatory and stupid group. Other than ourselves, most of the other prisoners were dull peasants much given over to wailing and clutching at the stirrups of our guards' mounts. I could have told them this would only enrage the guards, being that I spoke classical Arabic, but I took a perverse pleasure in watching this act yet again spark a furious outbreak of cursing and chastisement. I would cower with the rest, as the horses stamped among us, covering my head to deflect some of the blows from riding crops, and smiling to myself as the wails of pain rose up on all sides. It does not sound like Christian behaviour but all I can say is that there is a certain pleasure in the enjoyment of another soul's pain when one is full of bitter self-recrimination.